1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an air conditioning apparatus for a vehicle, capable of improving the defrosting performance of the windshield as well as the heating performance for the passenger compartment.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, an air conditioner for a vehicle, of the above type, has been disclosed in JP-A-5-124426. In an air conditioning case of this air conditioner for a vehicle, there are formed an inside air inlet and an outside air inlet on one end side and formed on the other end side a foot air outlet, a defroster air outlet, and a face air outlet.
In the air conditioning case, there is provided a partitioning plate which partitions an interior thereof into a first air passage extending from the inside air inlet to the face air outlet and the foot air outlet and a second air passage extending from the outside air inlet to the defroster air outlet.
When the heating of the passenger compartment is performed while defrosting the windshield, there is selected a foot/def mode in which the outside air sucked from the outside air suction inlet is blown out from the defroster air outlet toward the windshield through the first air passage, and inside air sucked from the inside air suction inlet is blown out from the foot air outlet toward the foot of the passenger in the passenger compartment through the second air passage.
In this way, since the outside air having a low humidity is blown out to the windshield, the defrosting performance of the windshield is improved. Further, since the inside air having been already heated is sucked into the second air passage, the heating load of a heating heat exchanger provided in the second air passage is reduced, and as a result the heating performance is improved.
Recently, in vehicles (such as diesel vehicles, electric motor vehicles, etc.) which are hard to secure the sufficient heating performance, it is strongly demanded that the heating load in the heating heat exchanger should be further reduced.